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| Almost comic book-style artwork for "Time, Space and the Ship." |
NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Angora Fever: The Collected Short Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (BearManor Bare, 2019).
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| The story's full artwork. |
The story: "Time, Space and the Ship," originally published in Swap, vol. 6, no. 2 (1972). Credited to "Dick Trent."
Synopsis: It is the 25th century, and the space race between Russia and the United States continues. Dawson, head of the space authority, meets with a top military man, General Wheeler. The Russians are landing on all the nearby planets first, and the taxpayers are becoming disenchanted. But Dawson has an ambitious plan to reach the nearest galaxy that could support life. Since this will take thousands of years, Wheeler thinks Dawson has lost his mind. Undaunted, Dawson continues to describe his plan, which involves an impossibly large ship and crew. The travelers who actually reach the other galaxy will be the distant descendants of those who started the voyage. And as for the crew? Well, Dawson has a bold idea about them, too!
Wood trademarks: Whiskey/Scotch (cf. "The Saga of Rance Ball," "Never Fall Backwards," many more stories); bringing the dead back to life (cf. Plan 9 from Outer Space); phrase "But then isn't always someone declared mad when they have come up with something no one else can conceive?" (compare to Bride of the Monster's "One is always considered mad when one discovers something that others cannot grasp."); infinity (cf. "Gore in the Alley," "Bums Rush Terror"); eternity (cf. "The Hazards of the Game," "The Hooker," "Florence of Arabia," "The Devil Collects His Dues," "The Exterminator"); butch lesbians (cf. "The Hooker," "The Fright Wigs").
Excerpt: "They would never know anything of earth…. Only the last of the generation… the generation which will land on that far-off planet will know what their ancestors had left back here. Only then will the library storehouses be opened for their knowledge… and we can only hope they use the information on the new planet for something more than we did."
Reflections: I wrote yesterday about Ed Wood's "big picture" mode, in which he ponders the human race in general rather than the struggles of individuals, and today's story is a perfect example. Some of what I said about "The Executioner" applies to this story, too. Our main character, the mysterious and possibly insane Mr. Dawson, is looking many centuries into the future, and he's actually excited by the fact that he will not live to see his elaborate plans come to fruition. General Wheeler, on the other hand, is pragmatic and unimaginative, only interested in achievements that can be duly recorded during his own lifetime. "By God," he says, "if I were going to sit down and make history I'd sure as hell find some way of reading about it even if I was deaf and blind."
Ultimately, this is a story about the future of humanity. If some experts are to be believed, human civilization as we know it may only last another 10,000 years... at least on this planet. Perhaps, someday, mankind will have to construct an intergalactic Noah's Ark and start over somewhere else. But this is still an Ed Wood story, so Eddie gives us one of his trademark twist endings, essentially using Dawson's final statement as the punchline to a very elaborate and prolonged joke. In retrospect, it's odd that, even in the 25th century, General Wheeler would think of women on a spaceship as being "dead weight" capable of doing nothing but having babies. I can't decide if Dawson's solution is meant to be progressive or insultingly stereotypical. Maybe a little of both.
"Time, Space and the Ship" is one of the stories in Angora Fever that most closely matches the tone of Ed Wood's classic movies. In fact, Dawson reminded me somewhat of Bunny Breckinridge as the haughty, imperious Ruler in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). They're both big shots parked behind desks, giving orders to underlings. And the escalating conversation between Dawson and Wheeler has clear parallels to the final confrontation between Dr. Vornoff (Bela Lugosi) and Professor Strowski (George Becwar) in Bride of the Monster (1955).
Next: "Dial-A-Vision" (1972)